43:53 “she starts out the first season with only two traits: pretty and rich. but then in season two after a lot of hard work… she’s no longer rich!” banger line
Please don't delete the old Korra video, in the first half, you made the best explanation, made me understand, why I like ATLA, Jojo and many "episodic" stories so much
Kora, not deciding who is going to be her other teachers also sets her up to fail. The others find their own teachers that could work for them. If aang was treated like this, he'd only get bumi and not toph. Same for katara vs. that old teacher from the northern tribe. Imagine kora learning from a swamp bender and katara. Blood bending and vine bending be cool. She could have thrown leaves like ninja stars.
1:11:04 "Zaheer is an anarchist so wants his mom to get out of his roo- wants to abolish all governments ..." that made me laugh way harder than it had any right to
I had been shipping Korra and Bolin since the FIRST SEASON! It was always what I wanted to happen, THANK YOU LILY! I have never had anyone else validate this. Everytime I brought it up to someone they were always like "ugh, really? But mako is so much better, and it's who she actually wants to be with" Like- no. Mako was a prick who I basically always hated.
I was also in the KorraxBolin crowd. They have actual chemistry, and I'm not sure why she latches onto Maku, other than him being a little more attractive. They just made a love triangle for the sake of it.
Thank you Lily for emphasizing not having villain in a story. I’ve always felt insecure about not having one in my story being a problem. I appreciate that you show that it’s not mandatory to tell a good story. Also thank you for mentioning the benefits of an episodic narrative.
The writers were signposting this secret identity, then subverted it with the secret-brothers thing. They should have played it straight and made it the same person, since their theme was already about a powermonger taking advantage of genuine ire. If they wanted the secret-brothers thing to work, they needed the brothers to have some real ideological conflict, and make Amon sincere in his crusade. Then the brothers actually come into conflict, and they have meaningful interactions for drama, and Tarrlock has to change to accept his powermongering is making his society worse. Not sure what Amon's arc would need to be, either doubling down on his revolution or changing his mind to advocate for equality with his brother's support.
I mean it was heavily foreshadowed just to then be subverted: You thought Amon was Tarrlok, but no, it was _some other guy_ - and also he is Tarrlok's secret brother.
Out-Fucking-Standing Lily!!! Taking a more measured approach while sticking to what you said years ago and seeing new good and bad things to better showcase the shows missed potential. One of my favorite YT Essayist, and who has opened up to their audience so much recently. Thank you and Justice for Kora
The "reverse Maxwell Sheffield" comment about Mako undoing the breakup was so precise and so biting that I had to pause the video and sit there for a minute before continuing.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels the same about Varick especially when the show was air, dude was a straight up criminal and was forgiven so easily.
@@taheahshahdaiah6422 yeah, I never understood why he got to have a happy ending like… did the show just forget the things he had done??? Then again, the show kept shoveling unwanted characters (Beifongs and Tenzin’s family) on us so it makes sense.
30:28 I felt the exact same way when I first watched Korra. And I felt the exact same warm fuzzy feels when I first saw Bolin ask Korra out. I feel like Bryke wanted to have a water-nice-girl/fire-bad-boy couple because they saw how passionate the Zutara shippers were so they wanted to give them their own version of Zutara in the sequel to satisfy them. However, in the first season the writers unintentionally made Bolin a better fit for her. And it was just for the reasons you described, their contrasts actually compliment each other really well. Korra is a lot more driven especially with regards to being the Avatar, which is supported by Bolin's loyalty and supportiveness. Moreover, as you brilliantly pointed out Bolin's "staying light on your feet" lesson was an excellent way for her to pick up one of the most fundamental attributes of airbending. I can now see a much better first season where Bolin's relationship with Korra allows her to unlock airbending precisely because of his charm and laid-back attitude rubbing off on her.
They really did Sokka dirty in this series everyone, their grandkids, and the cabbage guys kid came back but what happened to Sokka who cares he's a non-bender and wasn't really an asset to the team
You know, when discussing the "relationship"/love triangle, I found that you were saying a lot of very similar things to Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions in her video on Romance subplots. You both point out how people somehow believe that the important part of a relationship is only the build up, and ignore the fact that usually the best part if a relationship is when they actually start working on maintaining them. I love that both of you have this similar take, and it's reassuring coming from both of you that mine and others distaste for a number of romances is valid for the same reason.
I think having Korra be the one to kill the Earth Queen would be a wonderful way to flesh out her character, but also legitimize the Red Lotus. The Avatar killing a political leader and thus causing a massive power vacuum is the kind of “Avatar is bad” philosophy they have been preaching this whole time along with their “kill all governments” talk. This would give them justification, at least in their own minds, to want to kill the Avatar.
It also gives Korra and Kuvira a linking story plot in regards to the situation with the Earth Queen Maybe some people, like Kuvira and some others, see it as Korra trying to remove evil rule, just not able to follow through seeing as to how she got wiped and unable to restore the Earth Kingdom in full swing
Seeing how your perspective evolved over the years and see what time has vindicated you on is delightful. Also I love Niva and Lavi. They are one of your best ideas. Good job with all of this Sunshine. You should be proud ❤
Semi unrelated but your mini section about shipping toxicity being painted as equal when in reality alot of the vitriol is from one particular side makes me think of fandoms in general. Like when a fandom is called out people love to deflect and say "Erm actually all fandoms are like this so this is just a vocal minority so we're not actually that bad" when we all know damn well some fandoms are inherently more toxic than others
huh, never thought you'd be that into city planning worldbuilding. Your ideas about how Republic city should have been designed would have been so much better than New York doing cosplay.
I haven't finished the section on the equalists yet, but what you said about Tarrlok being the leader of the equalists is exactly what I was predicting would happen. I was so disappointed that that isn't what happened.
now that you mention it... korra and bolin have oddly enough ALOT in common, almost to the point of making me think it was intended. They give off a gym couple vibe. Asami and mako also aesthetically looked like a pairing. but yeah sometimes writers making things confusing and the characters fizzle out
When Korra first started airing I remember being so excited for a new Avatar, but I didn’t even finish season 1 before I stopped watching because I couldn’t latch onto any of the characters. Watching episodes during your streams was effectively my first time actually watching the show, and I was shocked at how much I was actually enjoying. And like clockwork, the villains would start villaining and my enjoyment would fucking nose dive. You’ve been beating that “stories don’t always need villains” drum for years, and LoK feels like it needs to be studied academically for how perfectly it incapsulates why.
28:54 This reminds me of people coming up to Alphonse Elric, the soul in a suit of armor, and saying "Wow, you must be the Full Metal Alchemist!" Meanwhile Shortstack Edward is right over there.
Yk, every time I see that scene of Korra suddenly getting air bending, I just think how much better it'd be if Amon was back on his benders vs nonbenders shit and no-bending Korra just runs up and decks him in his stupid face. She's a brawler and she's damn good at it! Let her do some of it!
I'm glad I'm not the only person that finds it weird when shows (including anime) have an obsession with beating up women in humiliating ways, but when they beat up men its viewed as empowering in a way. Like, when you watch Aang getting beaten up, you're waiting for the comeback moment and you get the satisfying take down. Then you watch Korra and the situation gets worse and worse just for her to get lucky or saved. Same thing in anime, you see women getting beaten up and its weirdly sexualized with defined body shapes and its hard to look at because they have to be beaten to the edge of their life before they can make a comeback.
@@universalshadow You're intentionally mispresenting the argument here. The issue isn't that Korra gets hurt in a fight. The issue is in the way she gets hurt. Compare Korra losing to Kuvira with Tenzin losing to the Red Lotus for example. When Tenzin is losing and gets brutalized the camera pans away as the Red Lotus beats him, leaving him some dignity and not treating the viewer to a drawn-out torture scene. When Korra loses to Kuvira, there is no such respect from the framing. We get to see every brutal smack-down in detail. Or how about that infamous scene of the Red Lotus poisoning Korra? The camera seems to positively love every frame of Korra screaming and writhing in agony. Now tell me: did this ever happen to Aang? Was his suffering ever treated like a spectacle the way Korra's was? Was Aang losing a fight ever this drawn out?
@@universalshadownice try but you know damn well no one asked for drawn out torture scenes of the women we just want fights that are entertaining and well choreographed😊
The point about korra loving being the avatar is why I think I stuck with the series, for all her faults Korra is eager to help people. She wants to actually deal with problems in a way thats pretty refreshing. With the gang harassing that shopkeeper a lot of animated heroes would of tried talking them down but (iirc) Korra goes "fuck that" and freezes a dudes head
My favorite sections were the ones about Korra and season 3. Korra section: Because it made me reevaluate how much I enjoy Korra as a character and now she is my favorite character from the show. Season 3 section: Cause for the longest time it was the only season in the show that I thought had no squandered story potential, as I used to think that season never really tried to tell a story outside of a bunch of bending fights, but your points about dealing with the return of airbenders and how Korra should've killed the earth queen, Have somewhat changed my feelings about the missed potential for that season.
in all honesty this is,if not the best,my personal favorite video you've ever made all of your evolution as a critic and content creator in the 7 years since the original video comes to a head here,and it's absolutely incredible you delve into so much more detail than last time,analyze the characters in such a complex,compelling way and present so many more absolutely amazing alternate ideas that it makes me sad that wasn't the show we got congratulations on this immaculate essay,i'm going to be rewatching it plenty of times in the future
You describing suyin not wanting to fight lin reminded me of kids next door when father chose to not fight grandfather. Aa a kid you wanted to see the fight but as you get older you understand its a waste of time and energy.
One thought struck me when you were talking about how aangs kids and his neglect, what about katara? I don't remember if her parentage to tenzin, buma and kya was talked about in story ever but would she allow aang to neglect his children?
That's something I kept waiting for her to dig into during the essay. But I guess, Katara's role in the Legend of Korra was to be a callback and nothing else
That was always my question too, I wish the show discussed that because they really did not discuss Katara’s legacy AT ALL. And you cannot convince me that she, the teenage novice waterbender who’s desire to learn to fight so she could protect those she loved and preserve her dying culture was the inciting incident that set the plot off, would just lay back and not have any influence on world politics after the war. Like she was the avatars master, advisor, the daughter of the southern chief, a war hero, and had connections to every government seat in the world. Be so fr right now
Bolins problem with fandom dumbing him down as comic relief and nothing more is a problem when any character plays comic relief and any other character traits they have is ignored and just criticised for being comic relief. Take Clay from Wings of Fire, becomes the Comic Relief after his book and its the only thing the fandom remembers him for and is criticised for "going back on development" but he is most well rounded character and isnthe one that brings all the other characters together as well as the reason why the other main characters dont end up getting themselves killed. His Big Brother character trope is complete ignored just because he is also the comic relief. Comic relief characters seem so misunderstood
In order for a fandom to recognize a comic relief character as being more than just jokes, you basically need a scene like critical role's scanlan's "what's my mother's name!?" scene, were they have a breakdown over being seen as nothing but jokes.
Always nice to have one of Lily's video's playing in the background. It really helps exercise creativity in a way that was never considered. Thank You.
Lin replacing kuvira is actually the most brilliant thing I've ever heard, and it actually does fit perfectly with her character. Moreover, it almost feels like that was what they were setting her up with her visiting her sister and having a mental breakdown after being unable to move on. Maybe I am giving the writers too much credit but do you think that that might have been the original plan before the creators chickened out because Lin was relatively popular so they made up Kuvira at the last minute?
It was interesting to hear Death Battle be mentioned in this. As a fan of that series, it absolutely works as just a bunch of anime fights since that's part of what it set out to do; Give us entertaining fights. Any stories that they did fit in were in more recent episodes and moreso flavor for the fights themselves. A great example off the top of my head is Martian Manhunter vs Silver Surfer, where during the fight the 2 of them are fighting and don't know why, thus letting them question their existences and ending with the Surfer wondering what's going to happen next after he wins the fight. This works for Death Battle since it's a series built on primarily giving us fight scenes, but with a series like Korra where the primary goal is to give us a story, pointless fight scenes for the sake of fight scenes absolutely don't work and really adds nothing. Also, the fact that Death Battle gave Korra herself more respect than her home show is really fuckin' depressing. Even after she lost the fight, her opponent paid Korra her due respects. And there wasn't a pointless scene of Korra being tortured, either. The fact that DEATH BATTLE avoided doing something that LoK did multiple times really says something about Bryke, doesn't it?
goodness, thank you for that "real life villains are simple as fuck" thing. its something ive been saying for a while now myself. whether its a greedy businessman or a dictator its not complex, at all. big villains (by that i mean in those in big stakes stories) being complex usually ends in a "well they had some good ideas but now theyre commiting a genocide, oopsies" or "hey why is this a villain instead of just an antagonist that ultimately exists to be more than a boss fight" or worst case scenario "why is the story against this, this is correct actually". it just never works in big stakes stories and thats most stories. ive heard that having a villain be against colonisation would be better. like, what
This video reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend a few months back. Basically we were talking and I said I didn't like the Legend of Korra. He he made an off hand remark about how a lot of people don't like the show because they're sexist, and I promptly responded that the Legend of Korra has a lot of problems, but that Korra the character isn't really one of them.
Years back I saw Mr enter (yes I know) say that Korra should have been trouble water bending since her arc involved dealing with change. Thinking about Book 2 if that was case then it would have been an interesting thing to see: The water tribe has been so disconected from their culture that its own avatar learned the other elements before her own culture.
Listening to all the different perspectives and takes on this show, it feels like this show has a whole host of threads of potential things it could've done well, but instead decided on being a theme park for set pieces, animations, and fights. Yet another show that seems more interesting and fun to speculate on, rather than actually watch.
I have to say that while I too resent Katara's entire character being reduced to Team Mom, everyone I know thought of her as being the team Mom before Toph even showed up much less the scene where they actually said it. She was well characterized outside of that and deserves recognition for it but none of that actually detracts from her being several of the character's mother figures.
I honestly like your reviews. The Legend of Korra review was honestly the first video I watched on your channel. I thought it was hilarious, entertaining, and accurate. With that said, I think it's admirable that you want to rethink it and share any new and old thoughts.
I love your criticism of season 2. Bringing up the spiritual porblems and the solution etc. and the n just letting it flow into some plot of overtaking power over the tribes and finally having those laser giant fights really left me dissatisfied
See this is what I've tell my friends (who are LoK fans) why I don't like Legend of Korra because as you get older and have a better understanding of how the world operates in a political stance. It hasn't aged that well. The same way I don't really like the Harry Potter series anymore (aside from Joanne's blatant Transphobia) because when you see clear glaring red flags of societal/ political oppression and corruption, none of the protagonists didn't really challenged, uprooted and to help change the status quo to something better. Despite all of the corruption they've saw and endured. Yes there were good moments and potential in LoK but unfortunately, it's been overshadowed by poor writing and decision making.
I will say on the politics front i do like what kay and skittles has to say about Bryke’s bad understanding of politics and their capitalist and neocolonial world view. Worth a watch if you are looking for another person to watch on the topic and don’t like Hello Future Me’s takes on the franchise.
@@cattievogelsong96 yeah I like future me's videos but he's very clearly biased when it comes to Korra, even with poor writing choices the show has made.
The worst part of HP, to me, is that when there is any attempt at pointing out those issues, they either: a) get dropped from the story, b) are fine actually, or c) fixing them is ridiculed. The whole SPEW subplot with Hermione...what the fuck. Which is kinda what happened with Korra, minus the slave part.
This was fun! I never thought that one of my random comments on a stream would make it into a video of yours, i feel so honored. Looking back and comparing this video and the old one i can definitely see the improvement in a lot of ares but most notably your take on Kuvira who in the original video was glossed over to the point you had to make another video solely for her and even that ended in an inconclusive point. Here you're coverage of Kuvira is much more thorough and succinct. I also liked the idea of Tarrlok being Amon. In general, the series could have done more with all it's characters if they didn't get disctracted by the next boom boom fight scene.
Asami was originally going to be a spy for the Equalists, that makes a lot of sense. I was just thinking wrecking into Mako is a good way to get close to the Avatar.
Somebody said they shouldve hid appa and during sozins comet and tell aang that firelord ozai took him and he would've slayed him no question 😂😂😂 i agree
Having watched both Korra videos, I like the way this one is portrayed a lot better. They both share similar points, but I feel like this one focuses also more on the good ideas that weren't used to their fullest potential, and also going a bit more in depth on how certain things could have been improved to make a more coherent and interesting story. I very much agree with the fact that you don't need extreme stakes to create a well put together drama or mystery, at times the writers seemed like they were afraid that they'd make the show too boring without ending on some grand anime shounen battle. I think season 2 and 4 endings feel a bit over the top compared to the rest, as huge beam struggles or spirit fights, or huge mecha robots terrorizing the city just feel kinda out of place for the Avatar universe to me, but maybe that's me comparing it to ATLA. To me overall the series was a mixed bag. When it was more grounded I actually quite enjoyed it, but when the stakes were increased, I felt like the show was trying a bit too hard to one up its predecessor, and ended up failing miserably.
Whenever I come back to this show, I always feel like it was good, it was fine and also weirdly misguided. Like, they focus on a lot of stuff in the show that straight doesn't matter. And also the amount of torture scenes. I'll be honest, I never realized just how women get these gruesome scenes and men don't. Maybe it's because I stick to more stuff like Resident Evil, where the violence is kinda equal, I think. Idk, I remember stuff like Leon going through a LOT and how Wesker utterly demolishes Chris at every opportunity. To a certain degree, I can see how the main character being in agony could be a good point for storytelling when done once, just to point out the power difference. Not to the same degree and frequency Korra gets.
your "they could have done this" part of every arch analysis, makes me crave the show that Korra could have been, any fanfics that actually *are* this? also, on Kuvira being a cool villain, just let her be a villain. make the heroes the good guys, the make the snot nosed prince a good leader, with the mandate of heaven, and just let her be magneto Hitler.
on the part about villains being simple--i agree so much. one of my favorite movies is puss in boots the last wish and the villain in that one is literally a guy who's really greedy and wants to be mega powerful. that's why he works so well. like throughout the whole movie whenever he's on screen he is just the fucking worst. even jiminy cricket can't save him. which is why at the end when every character joins hands to wipe him out it's even more awesome.
I know I keep commenting but yow! That United Republic section is VERY VERY VERY VERY EXTREMELY TIMELY. Settler Colonialism is alive and unfortunately well
49:49 People say "Aang would give her up for the world, Zuko would give up the world for her" AS IF IT WASN'T THE OTHER WAY AROUND Aang literally says "why would I i choose cosmic energy over Katara?" and only does so when he needs to save her whereas Zuko literally betrays Katara's trust just for his honour (I get it was a big deal and he's an abuse victim and I'm not giving him grief, but it's not giving "would give up the world for her) Like, Zutara is valid, I guess (though he'd have caught lightning for any one of them since that's just the kinda guy he is), but blatant mischaracterization isn't😭
What you envisioned when you were talking about what the united republic could have looked like around 1:15:30, sounds a lot like what Zootopia is portrayed like, when Judy Hops first reached the city.
Korra and katara getting got in those example scenes are like when you fall in BOTW and link goes into ragdoll and you just have to wait for him to tumble down the entire mountain before seeing the game over screen
Amazing video! I love your old videos, but I can understand why you may not lol. Your old style made me smile, and I truly enjoyed the videos. Similarily, I love your newer videos but for different reasons. I can't quite explain why, but yeah. Keep up the amazing work!!!
In the civil war story, if they wanted to keep the origins of the avatar, they should have made the conflict betwen vaatu and raava more like a sibling fighting and a civil war kinda deal (obiously change it so it isn't a god vs satan metaphor).
1:24:17 they did that with Bioshock a bit, except the twist was that an exploitative con man in a capitalist dystopia faked his death to become a Scottish revolutionary to advocate against the dystopia for his own gain.
21:42 God.... damnit. I never wanted to see that word again. I would have been happy had the corner of the internet I found out about that word in been so small that Ryona would have faded away into obscurity. But to my memory, you are the first RUclipsr I've seen who has brought it up, and now it's been immortalized here. I guess that means it has endured the test of time, that ryona is here to stay.
Lily thank you so much for shouting on Only Yesterday (and grave of the fireflies). Isao Takahata is one of the best to ever do it. What do you think of his other films? Kaguya and Pom Poko? I think they're both very interesting thematically and absolutely GORGEOUS. Ty, lol ❤
If I had a nickel for everytime a inferior sequel series declared "the age of ______ is over" I'd have 2 nickels, which isn't alot but it's weird that it happened twice. (Boruto btw) 1:48:02
The proletariat's revenge guy needs to watch Superman the animated series Legacy part 2. tl;dr Superman beats Darkseid near death and is utterly baffled that when he throws him at the common peoples feet they help him. This based roughly on a real tendency of people preferring a horrible status quo to the point of fighting to preserve it. Rather than try for better because they have no conception of what 'better' would be.
Honestly, I'm happy that somebody else notice how little dignity Korra gets, even as kid who was watching as it was airing, I find it annoying that side character gets to do plot saving moments, while Korra get curb stomped. It is also my gripe with Invincible show adaptation, where they take protagonist with jerky side who is competent for the most part and whose curb stomping and amount of blood show gradual escalation and darkness of the series, and turn him in this bizarre pot of being the most inoffensive blank who sometimes does what comic counterpart does when show remembers where it's going, all the while being brutally mained and needing someone to save him more times than in the comic for sake of cheap drama and because blood effects are the only good looking part of the show ..... in season 1, in season 2 it is pretty bad.
If there's one topic you highlighted in this video and The Legend of Korra's entire being, it's wasted potential. There's wasted potential in the world, wasted potential in each season's political plots. Heck, there's even wasted potential in every single character, especially Korra. (By the way, you brilliantly pointed out how Korra is not a Mary Sue or one note as many have said she is. She's just a square character shoved into a round hole by her writers.) You said this show pioneered many ideas and motifs that later shows and media would take and build off. And I know what the one common denominator of them is once you look past the anime explosions and meme quote characters. It's wasted potential. And it's that wasted potential that's made fandom pop off in the past decade, at least. The source material crawled and gave out prompts. So that the fans with each of their interpretations and spins on the source material could run. And it's this "running" that seems to be a lot of what fandom has become in recent years too. It feels like people see a piece of flawed media that could have been great. And then they individually take a hammer to it like the Engineer in Team Fortress 2 to force fix it for their sake alone. When you look at fandom from that point of view, it almost appears delusional.
The Yor Briar joke will live in my head rent free. I now want your opinion on Spy x Family in any capacity because S3 might go straight to Cloverworks while The One Piece is in production
This is a good video. It's interesting to see you go back to your earlier work and expand upon it. Whether that's a change in prospective or expanding on the ideas that were brought up in your previous work. When you were talking about the ideas with Tarrlok playing both sides and how the show needs to better represent the disparities between benders and non benders in republic city, a few ideas come to mind. Now I might be blowing smoke up my own backside and calling it genius, but one of the ideas that come to mind is how the police react differently to non benders. For example, if a gang of benders are harassing a non bender and the non bender picks up a metal pipe or kitchen knife to try to defend themselves. When the police show up the react much harsher to the non bender because they have a weapon, compared to the benders which have a much greater capability of cause harm and damage because of their bending. It's just that bending has been around for so long and is so normalized combined with any lingering cultural hierarchy nonsense that a person with a flamethrower in their fists, someone that can waterboard you to death on a whim, or someone that can impale you on a spike from the very ground you are standing on is not seen as dangerous as a person with a pipe. Another idea I thought of was around the police force again, but more internally than externally. This idea could be extended to the city as a whole, but my focus is on the police force. Within the police force benders hold higher ranks and positions, with better pay and benefits than non benders. The benders are in positions like detectives, officers, police chief, etc. Non benders on the other hand are clerks, receptionists, janitors, and maybe mechanics. This hierarchical disparity is not only because of tradition from when the police were formed but also because the jobs that non benders have are seen as either being wasteful or overkill for benders. On top of that there could be backwards thinking that you need to be a bender to be a detective or officer, even though bending is needed to look for clues, gather evidence, or stop criminals especially with advancing technology is making non benders being capable of combatting benders. This could also tie in with the equalists with some of their members being former or current employees of the police force, providing insider knowledge on how it operates, what the police are doing, and how police would react to something the equalists do.
Everything in the section about Aang's good character traits informing his bad ones reminds me of the negative reactions to Luke Skywalker in the sequels. The fandom not understanding that Luke being his father's son doesn't just apply to his cool powers and hero traits, but also his impulsiveness and tendency to dwell on problems. On a related note, I feel like fandom culture's ability to consolidate their opinions online has resulted in a terrible feedback loop where negative reactions hold more sway than positive ones. LoK, in my opinion, was an early casualty of this going in to the 2010's. Where fans suddenly had a semi-direct line to the creators and came to believe that they were somehow unofficial members of the writers room, able to decree what should be canon or acceptable based purely on how hard they could dog pile against opposing viewpoints.
I have never seen even one episode of Korra, so all my knowledge comes from random video essays I heard while playing video games, including yours. Not sure where I'm going with this
A great video, thank you for making it! When you mentioned a city designed by multiple architects that is a bit of a hodge podge, I remembered the Elemental movie and how its premise was kind of that. It's also a very neat movie about being a child of immigrants and figuring out whether you should be true to your passion or honour your parents' legacy and generally a good recommend! RE: "communism being a result of refusing to regulate private industries" - reminds me of watching some prof Richard D Wolff talk about these topics and AFAIR his explanation was that communism was a critique of capitalism in a similar vein as capitalism was a critique of feudalism. Each addresses the shortcomings of the other system. As for having to rebuild the air nation - it would've been really interesting to see how the air nomad culture would have to change based on the air benders being from all over the place. Instead of a culturally and ethnically monoculture you would have to accomodate people form multiple cultures coming together and building a blended society (since the Canadian residential school system wouldn't work too well on adults...). As for our blandest anarchist antagonist... I guess the only sliver of anything you could give him is that international politics is basically anarchy - the only way to make another nation do what you want is to either offer them something they want or force them into it by economic sanctions, international political pressure or straight up invading the nation. But Zaheer is not really representing any nation, so that point is kind of moot...
10:51 Korra is literally the female experience. Being held bacl at every turn, being told your too much, too emotional, too young, too this or that. Yet still kicking all the ass despite being held back. Idk if the wroters did this on purpose but it hits right in my trans male heart Korra was so helpful in my ending the argument of am i a strong women or a dude. Ido how to explain it but yeah
See, I had this exact experience between Bolin and Korra but with the old Teen Titans between Starfire and Beast Boy. As a kid I was like "Why are Robin and Starfire the main focus of the romance sub plots, Beast Boy and Star make a great set of friends and probably would make pretty supportive and loving partners for each other. Instead we get teen angst boy and angry goth girl stereotype as the separate love interests?" (Gonna be honest, while I found raven cool as a kid, her personality kinda irked me as a kid, since I was going through relatively similar trauma daily and I didn't take it out on other people like Raven did. Young me didn't really understand nuance.) It was only later when the annoyingly grimdark "Darkseid kills everyone" movie came out and I found out Raven and Damien were a couple and it clicked for me. The Teen Titans show set up the wrong people with each other, Robin and Raven would work great together and help each other so much more than Beast Boy or Starfire. Just a weird thing I kinda realized a while back since Beast Boy is kinda one of my favorite heroes next to Wiccan and Thor.
43:53 “she starts out the first season with only two traits: pretty and rich. but then in season two after a lot of hard work… she’s no longer rich!”
banger line
Please don't delete the old Korra video, in the first half, you made the best explanation, made me understand, why I like ATLA, Jojo and many "episodic" stories so much
Lily: Did anyone ever like Mako?
Everyone, loudly: NOOO!
Kora, not deciding who is going to be her other teachers also sets her up to fail. The others find their own teachers that could work for them. If aang was treated like this, he'd only get bumi and not toph. Same for katara vs. that old teacher from the northern tribe. Imagine kora learning from a swamp bender and katara. Blood bending and vine bending be cool. She could have thrown leaves like ninja stars.
@@comradekitty3759 omg lmfao "Boomie" looks like a slur for boomers
It's spelled Bumi
❤️
Calling toph "gilf yoda" is the funniest thing i read today
When she rides your back, you get pregnant!
1:11:04 "Zaheer is an anarchist so wants his mom to get out of his roo- wants to abolish all governments ..."
that made me laugh way harder than it had any right to
I had been shipping Korra and Bolin since the FIRST SEASON! It was always what I wanted to happen, THANK YOU LILY! I have never had anyone else validate this. Everytime I brought it up to someone they were always like "ugh, really? But mako is so much better, and it's who she actually wants to be with"
Like- no. Mako was a prick who I basically always hated.
It is a heavy burden, being correct all the time
Korra kisses Bolin good luck on a mission and he melts metaphorically while the ground beneath him melts literally XD
I was also in the KorraxBolin crowd. They have actual chemistry, and I'm not sure why she latches onto Maku, other than him being a little more attractive. They just made a love triangle for the sake of it.
Justice for BolinxKorra!
That moment where Korra decides to get on Mako, well that's the showrunners making Korra promiscuous.
I appreciate how your works build on each other.The perspective is consistent, and you are willing to embrace and address it when it changes.
Thank you Lily for emphasizing not having villain in a story. I’ve always felt insecure about not having one in my story being a problem. I appreciate that you show that it’s not mandatory to tell a good story. Also thank you for mentioning the benefits of an episodic narrative.
Holy Shit, Tarrlok secretly being Amon would've been brilliant.
You will find my wife has a chronic case of having wonderful ideas XD
When I first watched the show that was my prediction. Was rather disappointed by the actual twist.
@@ponygonporygon2153 absolutely not, literally everyone was expecting that
The writers were signposting this secret identity, then subverted it with the secret-brothers thing. They should have played it straight and made it the same person, since their theme was already about a powermonger taking advantage of genuine ire.
If they wanted the secret-brothers thing to work, they needed the brothers to have some real ideological conflict, and make Amon sincere in his crusade. Then the brothers actually come into conflict, and they have meaningful interactions for drama, and Tarrlock has to change to accept his powermongering is making his society worse. Not sure what Amon's arc would need to be, either doubling down on his revolution or changing his mind to advocate for equality with his brother's support.
I mean it was heavily foreshadowed just to then be subverted: You thought Amon was Tarrlok, but no, it was _some other guy_ - and also he is Tarrlok's secret brother.
Out-Fucking-Standing Lily!!! Taking a more measured approach while sticking to what you said years ago and seeing new good and bad things to better showcase the shows missed potential. One of my favorite YT Essayist, and who has opened up to their audience so much recently.
Thank you and
Justice for Kora
The "reverse Maxwell Sheffield" comment about Mako undoing the breakup was so precise and so biting that I had to pause the video and sit there for a minute before continuing.
“Oh no they’ve come to revoke my sapphic license!” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
They opened fire on me too! Jerks!
@@turner15 What sucks is the month long class and test they make you take to get it back
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels the same about Varick especially when the show was air, dude was a straight up criminal and was forgiven so easily.
@@taheahshahdaiah6422 yeah, I never understood why he got to have a happy ending like… did the show just forget the things he had done??? Then again, the show kept shoveling unwanted characters (Beifongs and Tenzin’s family) on us so it makes sense.
30:28 I felt the exact same way when I first watched Korra. And I felt the exact same warm fuzzy feels when I first saw Bolin ask Korra out.
I feel like Bryke wanted to have a water-nice-girl/fire-bad-boy couple because they saw how passionate the Zutara shippers were so they wanted to give them their own version of Zutara in the sequel to satisfy them.
However, in the first season the writers unintentionally made Bolin a better fit for her. And it was just for the reasons you described, their contrasts actually compliment each other really well. Korra is a lot more driven especially with regards to being the Avatar, which is supported by Bolin's loyalty and supportiveness. Moreover, as you brilliantly pointed out Bolin's "staying light on your feet" lesson was an excellent way for her to pick up one of the most fundamental attributes of airbending.
I can now see a much better first season where Bolin's relationship with Korra allows her to unlock airbending precisely because of his charm and laid-back attitude rubbing off on her.
They really did Sokka dirty in this series everyone, their grandkids, and the cabbage guys kid came back but what happened to Sokka who cares he's a non-bender and wasn't really an asset to the team
You know, when discussing the "relationship"/love triangle, I found that you were saying a lot of very similar things to Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions in her video on Romance subplots. You both point out how people somehow believe that the important part of a relationship is only the build up, and ignore the fact that usually the best part if a relationship is when they actually start working on maintaining them. I love that both of you have this similar take, and it's reassuring coming from both of you that mine and others distaste for a number of romances is valid for the same reason.
Nostalgia has really softened me to LOK. I guess for many people, we feel sad over the show's wasted potential.
I think having Korra be the one to kill the Earth Queen would be a wonderful way to flesh out her character, but also legitimize the Red Lotus. The Avatar killing a political leader and thus causing a massive power vacuum is the kind of “Avatar is bad” philosophy they have been preaching this whole time along with their “kill all governments” talk. This would give them justification, at least in their own minds, to want to kill the Avatar.
It also gives Korra and Kuvira a linking story plot in regards to the situation with the Earth Queen
Maybe some people, like Kuvira and some others, see it as Korra trying to remove evil rule, just not able to follow through seeing as to how she got wiped and unable to restore the Earth Kingdom in full swing
Seeing how your perspective evolved over the years and see what time has vindicated you on is delightful.
Also I love Niva and Lavi. They are one of your best ideas.
Good job with all of this Sunshine. You should be proud ❤
awwwww
your good folks. good stuff.
I would love to learn more about these two sisters. Please, where can I read more of this idea?
@lukebundesen7856 www.tumblr.com/lily-orchard-stuff/tagged/avatar%20niva
@@LilianOrchard shit could i check out whats in here?
Semi unrelated but your mini section about shipping toxicity being painted as equal when in reality alot of the vitriol is from one particular side makes me think of fandoms in general.
Like when a fandom is called out people love to deflect and say "Erm actually all fandoms are like this so this is just a vocal minority so we're not actually that bad" when we all know damn well some fandoms are inherently more toxic than others
huh, never thought you'd be that into city planning worldbuilding. Your ideas about how Republic city should have been designed would have been so much better than New York doing cosplay.
I haven't finished the section on the equalists yet, but what you said about Tarrlok being the leader of the equalists is exactly what I was predicting would happen. I was so disappointed that that isn't what happened.
now that you mention it... korra and bolin have oddly enough ALOT in common, almost to the point of making me think it was intended. They give off a gym couple vibe. Asami and mako also aesthetically looked like a pairing. but yeah sometimes writers making things confusing and the characters fizzle out
When Korra first started airing I remember being so excited for a new Avatar, but I didn’t even finish season 1 before I stopped watching because I couldn’t latch onto any of the characters. Watching episodes during your streams was effectively my first time actually watching the show, and I was shocked at how much I was actually enjoying. And like clockwork, the villains would start villaining and my enjoyment would fucking nose dive. You’ve been beating that “stories don’t always need villains” drum for years, and LoK feels like it needs to be studied academically for how perfectly it incapsulates why.
28:54 This reminds me of people coming up to Alphonse Elric, the soul in a suit of armor, and saying "Wow, you must be the Full Metal Alchemist!" Meanwhile Shortstack Edward is right over there.
Babe wake up new Lily Orchard just dropped ❤
Yk, every time I see that scene of Korra suddenly getting air bending, I just think how much better it'd be if Amon was back on his benders vs nonbenders shit and no-bending Korra just runs up and decks him in his stupid face. She's a brawler and she's damn good at it! Let her do some of it!
I'm glad I'm not the only person that finds it weird when shows (including anime) have an obsession with beating up women in humiliating ways, but when they beat up men its viewed as empowering in a way. Like, when you watch Aang getting beaten up, you're waiting for the comeback moment and you get the satisfying take down. Then you watch Korra and the situation gets worse and worse just for her to get lucky or saved. Same thing in anime, you see women getting beaten up and its weirdly sexualized with defined body shapes and its hard to look at because they have to be beaten to the edge of their life before they can make a comeback.
@DayvonR64 I think only 2 males get close to this treatment, krillen and yamcha, and they still get more dignity by it being fast deaths.
@@DayvonR64 hilarious that people demand woman are put in more fight scenes and then whine when they hurt in a fight lmao
@@universalshadow You're intentionally mispresenting the argument here. The issue isn't that Korra gets hurt in a fight. The issue is in the way she gets hurt. Compare Korra losing to Kuvira with Tenzin losing to the Red Lotus for example. When Tenzin is losing and gets brutalized the camera pans away as the Red Lotus beats him, leaving him some dignity and not treating the viewer to a drawn-out torture scene. When Korra loses to Kuvira, there is no such respect from the framing. We get to see every brutal smack-down in detail. Or how about that infamous scene of the Red Lotus poisoning Korra? The camera seems to positively love every frame of Korra screaming and writhing in agony. Now tell me: did this ever happen to Aang? Was his suffering ever treated like a spectacle the way Korra's was? Was Aang losing a fight ever this drawn out?
@@universalshadownice try but you know damn well no one asked for drawn out torture scenes of the women we just want fights that are entertaining and well choreographed😊
I’ve watched your old review so many times I’m excited for this one
@1:13:24 it's easier for us to imagine the end of the world than it is for us to imagine a world without capitalism
The point about korra loving being the avatar is why I think I stuck with the series, for all her faults Korra is eager to help people. She wants to actually deal with problems in a way thats pretty refreshing. With the gang harassing that shopkeeper a lot of animated heroes would of tried talking them down but (iirc) Korra goes "fuck that" and freezes a dudes head
18:10 Even in that same episode Katara is shown writhing in agony before the guys come.
My favorite sections were the ones about Korra and season 3.
Korra section: Because it made me reevaluate how much I enjoy Korra as a character and now she is my favorite character from the show.
Season 3 section: Cause for the longest time it was the only season in the show that I thought had no squandered story potential, as I used to think that season never really tried to tell a story outside of a bunch of bending fights, but your points about dealing with the return of airbenders and how Korra should've killed the earth queen, Have somewhat changed my feelings about the missed potential for that season.
in all honesty this is,if not the best,my personal favorite video you've ever made
all of your evolution as a critic and content creator in the 7 years since the original video comes to a head here,and it's absolutely incredible
you delve into so much more detail than last time,analyze the characters in such a complex,compelling way and present so many more absolutely amazing alternate ideas that it makes me sad that wasn't the show we got
congratulations on this immaculate essay,i'm going to be rewatching it plenty of times in the future
You describing suyin not wanting to fight lin reminded me of kids next door when father chose to not fight grandfather. Aa a kid you wanted to see the fight but as you get older you understand its a waste of time and energy.
30:28 Freeze! Sapphic Police! _revokes license. high fives partner on the way out_
One thought struck me when you were talking about how aangs kids and his neglect, what about katara? I don't remember if her parentage to tenzin, buma and kya was talked about in story ever but would she allow aang to neglect his children?
That's something I kept waiting for her to dig into during the essay. But I guess, Katara's role in the Legend of Korra was to be a callback and nothing else
That was always my question too, I wish the show discussed that because they really did not discuss Katara’s legacy AT ALL. And you cannot convince me that she, the teenage novice waterbender who’s desire to learn to fight so she could protect those she loved and preserve her dying culture was the inciting incident that set the plot off, would just lay back and not have any influence on world politics after the war. Like she was the avatars master, advisor, the daughter of the southern chief, a war hero, and had connections to every government seat in the world. Be so fr right now
Bolins problem with fandom dumbing him down as comic relief and nothing more is a problem when any character plays comic relief and any other character traits they have is ignored and just criticised for being comic relief.
Take Clay from Wings of Fire, becomes the Comic Relief after his book and its the only thing the fandom remembers him for and is criticised for "going back on development" but he is most well rounded character and isnthe one that brings all the other characters together as well as the reason why the other main characters dont end up getting themselves killed. His Big Brother character trope is complete ignored just because he is also the comic relief.
Comic relief characters seem so misunderstood
In order for a fandom to recognize a comic relief character as being more than just jokes, you basically need a scene like critical role's scanlan's "what's my mother's name!?" scene, were they have a breakdown over being seen as nothing but jokes.
Always nice to have one of Lily's video's playing in the background. It really helps exercise creativity in a way that was never considered.
Thank You.
Lin replacing kuvira is actually the most brilliant thing I've ever heard, and it actually does fit perfectly with her character. Moreover, it almost feels like that was what they were setting her up with her visiting her sister and having a mental breakdown after being unable to move on. Maybe I am giving the writers too much credit but do you think that that might have been the original plan before the creators chickened out because Lin was relatively popular so they made up Kuvira at the last minute?
Be warned, Lily always has good ideas ^^
It was interesting to hear Death Battle be mentioned in this. As a fan of that series, it absolutely works as just a bunch of anime fights since that's part of what it set out to do; Give us entertaining fights. Any stories that they did fit in were in more recent episodes and moreso flavor for the fights themselves. A great example off the top of my head is Martian Manhunter vs Silver Surfer, where during the fight the 2 of them are fighting and don't know why, thus letting them question their existences and ending with the Surfer wondering what's going to happen next after he wins the fight. This works for Death Battle since it's a series built on primarily giving us fight scenes, but with a series like Korra where the primary goal is to give us a story, pointless fight scenes for the sake of fight scenes absolutely don't work and really adds nothing. Also, the fact that Death Battle gave Korra herself more respect than her home show is really fuckin' depressing. Even after she lost the fight, her opponent paid Korra her due respects. And there wasn't a pointless scene of Korra being tortured, either. The fact that DEATH BATTLE avoided doing something that LoK did multiple times really says something about Bryke, doesn't it?
goodness, thank you for that "real life villains are simple as fuck" thing. its something ive been saying for a while now myself. whether its a greedy businessman or a dictator its not complex, at all. big villains (by that i mean in those in big stakes stories) being complex usually ends in a "well they had some good ideas but now theyre commiting a genocide, oopsies" or "hey why is this a villain instead of just an antagonist that ultimately exists to be more than a boss fight" or worst case scenario "why is the story against this, this is correct actually". it just never works in big stakes stories and thats most stories. ive heard that having a villain be against colonisation would be better. like, what
This video reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend a few months back.
Basically we were talking and I said I didn't like the Legend of Korra. He he made an off hand remark about how a lot of people don't like the show because they're sexist, and I promptly responded that the Legend of Korra has a lot of problems, but that Korra the character isn't really one of them.
Years back I saw Mr enter (yes I know) say that Korra should have been trouble water bending since her arc involved dealing with change. Thinking about Book 2 if that was case then it would have been an interesting thing to see: The water tribe has been so disconected from their culture that its own avatar learned the other elements before her own culture.
Mako was basically the diet coke version of zuko😂 but zuko actually had a watchable and compelling arc
Fidel Cast Iron fucking broke me
That was certainly my favorite next to Gilf Yoda XD
Listening to all the different perspectives and takes on this show, it feels like this show has a whole host of threads of potential things it could've done well, but instead decided on being a theme park for set pieces, animations, and fights. Yet another show that seems more interesting and fun to speculate on, rather than actually watch.
I have to say that while I too resent Katara's entire character being reduced to Team Mom, everyone I know thought of her as being the team Mom before Toph even showed up much less the scene where they actually said it. She was well characterized outside of that and deserves recognition for it but none of that actually detracts from her being several of the character's mother figures.
I honestly like your reviews. The Legend of Korra review was honestly the first video I watched on your channel. I thought it was hilarious, entertaining, and accurate. With that said, I think it's admirable that you want to rethink it and share any new and old thoughts.
I love your criticism of season 2. Bringing up the spiritual porblems and the solution etc. and the n just letting it flow into some plot of overtaking power over the tribes and finally having those laser giant fights really left me dissatisfied
See this is what I've tell my friends (who are LoK fans) why I don't like Legend of Korra because as you get older and have a better understanding of how the world operates in a political stance. It hasn't aged that well. The same way I don't really like the Harry Potter series anymore (aside from Joanne's blatant Transphobia) because when you see clear glaring red flags of societal/ political oppression and corruption, none of the protagonists didn't really challenged, uprooted and to help change the status quo to something better. Despite all of the corruption they've saw and endured.
Yes there were good moments and potential in LoK but unfortunately, it's been overshadowed by poor writing and decision making.
That comparison makes too much sense
I will say on the politics front i do like what kay and skittles has to say about Bryke’s bad understanding of politics and their capitalist and neocolonial world view.
Worth a watch if you are looking for another person to watch on the topic and don’t like Hello Future Me’s takes on the franchise.
@@cattievogelsong96 yeah I like future me's videos but he's very clearly biased when it comes to Korra, even with poor writing choices the show has made.
The worst part of HP, to me, is that when there is any attempt at pointing out those issues, they either: a) get dropped from the story, b) are fine actually, or c) fixing them is ridiculed. The whole SPEW subplot with Hermione...what the fuck.
Which is kinda what happened with Korra, minus the slave part.
Lily giving Unicorn of War a shoutout was not on my 2024 bingo card but I loved it
@@ErosDiabolico Same here, been following them for a long while.
It's always interesting to see just how much our opinions and perspectives change over the years. Great video so glad to see it happen
This was fun! I never thought that one of my random comments on a stream would make it into a video of yours, i feel so honored. Looking back and comparing this video and the old one i can definitely see the improvement in a lot of ares but most notably your take on Kuvira who in the original video was glossed over to the point you had to make another video solely for her and even that ended in an inconclusive point.
Here you're coverage of Kuvira is much more thorough and succinct. I also liked the idea of Tarrlok being Amon. In general, the series could have done more with all it's characters if they didn't get disctracted by the next boom boom fight scene.
Asami was originally going to be a spy for the Equalists, that makes a lot of sense. I was just thinking wrecking into Mako is a good way to get close to the Avatar.
Somebody said they shouldve hid appa and during sozins comet and tell aang that firelord ozai took him and he would've slayed him no question 😂😂😂 i agree
Having watched both Korra videos, I like the way this one is portrayed a lot better. They both share similar points, but I feel like this one focuses also more on the good ideas that weren't used to their fullest potential, and also going a bit more in depth on how certain things could have been improved to make a more coherent and interesting story.
I very much agree with the fact that you don't need extreme stakes to create a well put together drama or mystery, at times the writers seemed like they were afraid that they'd make the show too boring without ending on some grand anime shounen battle. I think season 2 and 4 endings feel a bit over the top compared to the rest, as huge beam struggles or spirit fights, or huge mecha robots terrorizing the city just feel kinda out of place for the Avatar universe to me, but maybe that's me comparing it to ATLA.
To me overall the series was a mixed bag. When it was more grounded I actually quite enjoyed it, but when the stakes were increased, I felt like the show was trying a bit too hard to one up its predecessor, and ended up failing miserably.
Great follow-up to your older video, your analysis is so much more in-depth and level headed here. You've grown a lot as a RUclipsr.
Whenever I come back to this show, I always feel like it was good, it was fine and also weirdly misguided. Like, they focus on a lot of stuff in the show that straight doesn't matter.
And also the amount of torture scenes. I'll be honest, I never realized just how women get these gruesome scenes and men don't. Maybe it's because I stick to more stuff like Resident Evil, where the violence is kinda equal, I think. Idk, I remember stuff like Leon going through a LOT and how Wesker utterly demolishes Chris at every opportunity.
To a certain degree, I can see how the main character being in agony could be a good point for storytelling when done once, just to point out the power difference. Not to the same degree and frequency Korra gets.
@@CrimsoniteSP It’s Super Perverse…. Especially with Korra, being a Brown Asian Indigenous Young Woman. 😒
always a good day when Lily uploads a new video ♥
It is!
“jump his bones” 😭 haven’t heard that one in years
i hope i find my "bolin" one day...
...great video!
Everyone deserves a Bolin XD
your "they could have done this" part of every arch analysis, makes me crave the show that Korra could have been, any fanfics that actually *are* this?
also, on Kuvira being a cool villain, just let her be a villain. make the heroes the good guys, the make the snot nosed prince a good leader, with the mandate of heaven, and just let her be magneto Hitler.
on the part about villains being simple--i agree so much. one of my favorite movies is puss in boots the last wish and the villain in that one is literally a guy who's really greedy and wants to be mega powerful. that's why he works so well. like throughout the whole movie whenever he's on screen he is just the fucking worst. even jiminy cricket can't save him. which is why at the end when every character joins hands to wipe him out it's even more awesome.
I know I keep commenting but yow! That United Republic section is VERY VERY VERY VERY EXTREMELY TIMELY. Settler Colonialism is alive and unfortunately well
49:49 People say "Aang would give her up for the world, Zuko would give up the world for her" AS IF IT WASN'T THE OTHER WAY AROUND
Aang literally says "why would I i choose cosmic energy over Katara?" and only does so when he needs to save her whereas Zuko literally betrays Katara's trust just for his honour (I get it was a big deal and he's an abuse victim and I'm not giving him grief, but it's not giving "would give up the world for her)
Like, Zutara is valid, I guess (though he'd have caught lightning for any one of them since that's just the kinda guy he is), but blatant mischaracterization isn't😭
What you envisioned when you were talking about what the united republic could have looked like around 1:15:30, sounds a lot like what Zootopia is portrayed like, when Judy Hops first reached the city.
Really enjoying this new style of content
46:37 is honestly the hardest I’ve ever laughed to one of your videos. So proud of how well your critical analysis has become 😊💖
This is gonna be fun. I’m interested to see how your critical style has changed since the last Korra video!
Korra and katara getting got in those example scenes are like when you fall in BOTW and link goes into ragdoll and you just have to wait for him to tumble down the entire mountain before seeing the game over screen
Amazing video! I love your old videos, but I can understand why you may not lol. Your old style made me smile, and I truly enjoyed the videos. Similarily, I love your newer videos but for different reasons. I can't quite explain why, but yeah. Keep up the amazing work!!!
In the civil war story, if they wanted to keep the origins of the avatar, they should have made the conflict betwen vaatu and raava more like a sibling fighting and a civil war kinda deal (obiously change it so it isn't a god vs satan metaphor).
1:24:17 they did that with Bioshock a bit, except the twist was that an exploitative con man in a capitalist dystopia faked his death to become a Scottish revolutionary to advocate against the dystopia for his own gain.
21:42 God.... damnit. I never wanted to see that word again. I would have been happy had the corner of the internet I found out about that word in been so small that Ryona would have faded away into obscurity.
But to my memory, you are the first RUclipsr I've seen who has brought it up, and now it's been immortalized here. I guess that means it has endured the test of time, that ryona is here to stay.
I just discovered what it meant today and man am I disappointed in humanity.
Looks like the best written villain of LoK was the sheltered white-centrism all along.
I so so sooooo appreciate the praise for Bolin and the Borra ship, so many people just dismiss him/the idea of him and Korra being together
They’re making ANOTHER one? Can we just, not care?
Your old Korra video was fire, This? This is LAVA OOOHHHHH
Lily thank you so much for shouting on Only Yesterday (and grave of the fireflies). Isao Takahata is one of the best to ever do it. What do you think of his other films? Kaguya and Pom Poko? I think they're both very interesting thematically and absolutely GORGEOUS. Ty, lol ❤
50:33 i don’t know how I didn’t expect Zuko Azula tbh
god that’s a depressing sentence
WHAT DO YOU MEAN SEVEN YEARS AGO??? no way, that was like uh, ugh damn, time
If I had a nickel for everytime a inferior sequel series declared "the age of ______ is over" I'd have 2 nickels, which isn't alot but it's weird that it happened twice.
(Boruto btw) 1:48:02
The proletariat's revenge guy needs to watch Superman the animated series Legacy part 2. tl;dr Superman beats Darkseid near death and is utterly baffled that when he throws him at the common peoples feet they help him. This based roughly on a real tendency of people preferring a horrible status quo to the point of fighting to preserve it. Rather than try for better because they have no conception of what 'better' would be.
Honestly, I'm happy that somebody else notice how little dignity Korra gets, even as kid who was watching as it was airing, I find it annoying that side character gets to do plot saving moments, while Korra get curb stomped. It is also my gripe with Invincible show adaptation, where they take protagonist with jerky side who is competent for the most part and whose curb stomping and amount of blood show gradual escalation and darkness of the series, and turn him in this bizarre pot of being the most inoffensive blank who sometimes does what comic counterpart does when show remembers where it's going, all the while being brutally mained and needing someone to save him more times than in the comic for sake of cheap drama and because blood effects are the only good looking part of the show ..... in season 1, in season 2 it is pretty bad.
If there's one topic you highlighted in this video and The Legend of Korra's entire being, it's wasted potential. There's wasted potential in the world, wasted potential in each season's political plots. Heck, there's even wasted potential in every single character, especially Korra. (By the way, you brilliantly pointed out how Korra is not a Mary Sue or one note as many have said she is. She's just a square character shoved into a round hole by her writers.) You said this show pioneered many ideas and motifs that later shows and media would take and build off. And I know what the one common denominator of them is once you look past the anime explosions and meme quote characters. It's wasted potential.
And it's that wasted potential that's made fandom pop off in the past decade, at least. The source material crawled and gave out prompts. So that the fans with each of their interpretations and spins on the source material could run. And it's this "running" that seems to be a lot of what fandom has become in recent years too. It feels like people see a piece of flawed media that could have been great. And then they individually take a hammer to it like the Engineer in Team Fortress 2 to force fix it for their sake alone.
When you look at fandom from that point of view, it almost appears delusional.
The Yor Briar joke will live in my head rent free. I now want your opinion on Spy x Family in any capacity because S3 might go straight to Cloverworks while The One Piece is in production
ruclips.net/video/zx50rtXHeRI/видео.html
The animation studio is irrelevant. The strength of the show is the writing.
I hate the Zutara ship with every fiber of my being. I absolutely abhor people with enemies to lovers fetishes.
This is a good video. It's interesting to see you go back to your earlier work and expand upon it. Whether that's a change in prospective or expanding on the ideas that were brought up in your previous work. When you were talking about the ideas with Tarrlok playing both sides and how the show needs to better represent the disparities between benders and non benders in republic city, a few ideas come to mind. Now I might be blowing smoke up my own backside and calling it genius, but one of the ideas that come to mind is how the police react differently to non benders. For example, if a gang of benders are harassing a non bender and the non bender picks up a metal pipe or kitchen knife to try to defend themselves. When the police show up the react much harsher to the non bender because they have a weapon, compared to the benders which have a much greater capability of cause harm and damage because of their bending. It's just that bending has been around for so long and is so normalized combined with any lingering cultural hierarchy nonsense that a person with a flamethrower in their fists, someone that can waterboard you to death on a whim, or someone that can impale you on a spike from the very ground you are standing on is not seen as dangerous as a person with a pipe. Another idea I thought of was around the police force again, but more internally than externally. This idea could be extended to the city as a whole, but my focus is on the police force. Within the police force benders hold higher ranks and positions, with better pay and benefits than non benders. The benders are in positions like detectives, officers, police chief, etc. Non benders on the other hand are clerks, receptionists, janitors, and maybe mechanics. This hierarchical disparity is not only because of tradition from when the police were formed but also because the jobs that non benders have are seen as either being wasteful or overkill for benders. On top of that there could be backwards thinking that you need to be a bender to be a detective or officer, even though bending is needed to look for clues, gather evidence, or stop criminals especially with advancing technology is making non benders being capable of combatting benders. This could also tie in with the equalists with some of their members being former or current employees of the police force, providing insider knowledge on how it operates, what the police are doing, and how police would react to something the equalists do.
Everything in the section about Aang's good character traits informing his bad ones reminds me of the negative reactions to Luke Skywalker in the sequels. The fandom not understanding that Luke being his father's son doesn't just apply to his cool powers and hero traits, but also his impulsiveness and tendency to dwell on problems. On a related note, I feel like fandom culture's ability to consolidate their opinions online has resulted in a terrible feedback loop where negative reactions hold more sway than positive ones. LoK, in my opinion, was an early casualty of this going in to the 2010's. Where fans suddenly had a semi-direct line to the creators and came to believe that they were somehow unofficial members of the writers room, able to decree what should be canon or acceptable based purely on how hard they could dog pile against opposing viewpoints.
Babe wake up new lily orchard video dropped
I love your commentary I watched the Disney retrospective at least 100 times
This is the funniest thing Lily has ever made. Thank you, you beautiful goddess.
38:03 honestly the best song for Mako
I have never seen even one episode of Korra, so all my knowledge comes from random video essays I heard while playing video games, including yours. Not sure where I'm going with this
Curse these centrist men with commitment issues XD
A great video, thank you for making it!
When you mentioned a city designed by multiple architects that is a bit of a hodge podge, I remembered the Elemental movie and how its premise was kind of that. It's also a very neat movie about being a child of immigrants and figuring out whether you should be true to your passion or honour your parents' legacy and generally a good recommend!
RE: "communism being a result of refusing to regulate private industries" - reminds me of watching some prof Richard D Wolff talk about these topics and AFAIR his explanation was that communism was a critique of capitalism in a similar vein as capitalism was a critique of feudalism. Each addresses the shortcomings of the other system.
As for having to rebuild the air nation - it would've been really interesting to see how the air nomad culture would have to change based on the air benders being from all over the place. Instead of a culturally and ethnically monoculture you would have to accomodate people form multiple cultures coming together and building a blended society (since the Canadian residential school system wouldn't work too well on adults...).
As for our blandest anarchist antagonist... I guess the only sliver of anything you could give him is that international politics is basically anarchy - the only way to make another nation do what you want is to either offer them something they want or force them into it by economic sanctions, international political pressure or straight up invading the nation. But Zaheer is not really representing any nation, so that point is kind of moot...
10:51 Korra is literally the female experience. Being held bacl at every turn, being told your too much, too emotional, too young, too this or that. Yet still kicking all the ass despite being held back. Idk if the wroters did this on purpose but it hits right in my trans male heart
Korra was so helpful in my ending the argument of am i a strong women or a dude. Ido how to explain it but yeah
Great video lily can’t wait for the inevitable tangled series video
See, I had this exact experience between Bolin and Korra but with the old Teen Titans between Starfire and Beast Boy.
As a kid I was like "Why are Robin and Starfire the main focus of the romance sub plots, Beast Boy and Star make a great set of friends and probably would make pretty supportive and loving partners for each other. Instead we get teen angst boy and angry goth girl stereotype as the separate love interests?"
(Gonna be honest, while I found raven cool as a kid, her personality kinda irked me as a kid, since I was going through relatively similar trauma daily and I didn't take it out on other people like Raven did. Young me didn't really understand nuance.)
It was only later when the annoyingly grimdark "Darkseid kills everyone" movie came out and I found out Raven and Damien were a couple and it clicked for me. The Teen Titans show set up the wrong people with each other, Robin and Raven would work great together and help each other so much more than Beast Boy or Starfire.
Just a weird thing I kinda realized a while back since Beast Boy is kinda one of my favorite heroes next to Wiccan and Thor.